Nightmare Portends the Future? Two days after Election Day I awoke from a terrible nightmare.  A torturer had just cut off my legs and was forcing me to walk on the stubs of my legs. I woke up screaming.  Who was my torturer? Why this dream? Why now? In August 2001 I experienced repeated waves of doom that something dreadful was coming.

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 Book Review: The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals.  Jane Mayer. Doubleday: New York, 2008. Prepare to be shattered. This is a difficult book to read. Mysteries of Bush Administration Response Post 9/11 Revealed Jane Mayer’s meticulous dissection of the actions of the Bush administration post 9/11 is an extraordinary service to Americans and to the world. Many of us have been trying to understand how this presidency went so wrong.

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 To Catch a Terrorist The lead article in the New York Times on June 22nd, Inside the Interrorgation of a 9/11 Mastermind, is a great piece of journalism. In the frightening days and months after 9/11 the CIA worked desperately to capture the terrorists responsible for it and to prevent another such attack on the US. They were very successful, capturing both 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah, logistics manager for Al Qaeda. This article reveals the operations of the CIA and ordinary people trying to do their work under extraordinary circumstances. Both these men were interrogated at a secret black site where they were subjected to harsh treatment and waterboarding before being moved to Guantanamo.                                                                                                                   Good Cop/Bad Cop The fascination of this article is in the interrogation details.

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